Why Mary Roach is my favourite science writer

While studying journalism in university, my required reading often included the type of long-form non-fiction I had rarely indulged in before starting the program. My personal reading in high school involved devouring Can-Lit novels, literary fiction and every back issue of Rolling Stone available in our school library. I was planning to become an entertainment journalist, so science writing never once crossed my mind or made it onto my reading list.

It was in university that I discovered the wonders of Oliver Sacks, whose vivid descriptions of medical cases were fascinating and so well-written that I found myself unable to put his books down. The idea that you could tell science stories in such a compelling way was new to me and, while I continued on the path to entertainment writing and then communications, I never forgot the feeling I got when I read Sacks all those years ago.

Now, as I transition to full-time science writing and communicating, I can only hope to be a quarter as good as Sacks. My biggest inspiration, however, is an author whose take on science is far quirkier than his. My love of Mary Roach began when I read Spook, her 2005 book that looks at the history of paranormal studies. Spook is a delightful read — smart, funny and full of quirky stories about a type of science that is arguably rather unscientific. My love for her writing continued through Stiff, the study of cadavers, Packing for Mars, which looks at the science of space travel, Bonk, the science of sex and, most recently, Grunt, which is an amusing and informative look at, of all things, military science.

I am not someone who has any particular interest in military science, yet I flew through this book as if it was a mass market thriller. Roach asks the questions we didn’t know we wanted to know — how does diarrhea impact military missions, is it OK to urinate during underwater training to join a submarine crew, why would a penis transplant be preferable to a reconstructed one for a soldier who has lost this most intimate part in combat? Going into each of Roach’s books, I had no idea I wanted to know the answer to any of the questions she asks — I’d never thought about them before. But Roach’s writing is so compelling, so quick-witted, so adorably self-deprecating, that I can’t help but get lost in the stories.

Each chapter of a Roach book could in and of itself be a fully-formed magazine feature. She travels to far flung locations and immerses herself in the activities that she is writing about (the chapter of Packing for Mars where she giddily breaks all the rules while in a zero-gravity simulator left me longing to spend some time in space with this woman who would surely be a fantastic BFF). Science is full of fascinating stories, but we don’t always do a great job of telling them. Partly, this is because we look at it with so much seriousness.

Roach peels away some of the stodgy layers to tell stories about things that are truly important, even if that’s not initially apparant — the emotional trauma of losing your penis in war is heartbreaking to learn about and the clinicians and scientists doing work in the area are truly heroes. There is a lightness to her writing that is compulsively readable and often incredibly amusing, yet she never veers so far into humour that you forget the very serious reasons behind the science she’s explaining. What are the best clothing choices for a sniper? Are certain smells more repulsive to particular cultures and thus better utilized in a weaponized stink bomb? The answers are surprising and well worth reading Grunt to find out.

Roach’s style continues to be an enormous influence on my own writing and I can’t wait to delve in Gulp: Adventures in the Alimentary Canal, in 2019.

Do you have a favourite science writer? Share your thoughts below.